How SAP Uses Quarterly Reports to Push Its Sustainability Efforts

When it comes to sustainability, “short-termism” — the idea that companies’ focus on quarterly financial reports over longer-term improvements — is often seen as an obstacle to true progress on reducing emissions and pollution.

But for SAP, taking the pulse of their sustainability efforts every three months has helped keep them on target, while refining the tools they use — and which they sell to their customers — to make for ever-greater results.

In addition to its annual sustainability report, the company has been reporting quarterly results since Q1 2010, and has lately been highlighting its progress in terms of cost savings to the business. And the results are impressive: Since 2008, SAP’s sustainability initiatives have saved the company €185 million — more than US$263 million — in operating costs.

In the last quarter alone, that number has grown by more than $24 million (€15 million).

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